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Dolby 5.1 digital and audio, front panel controls, infrared . . . Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 There would hardly be a computer sold these days without a sound card – even many business applications need sound. You can pay as little as thirty dollars or so for a generic sound card – or you can spend around $499 and get what many regard as one of the best. Review by Ross Tester M ost of the sound cards these days advertise one particular feature: “Sound Blaster Compatible”. If they’re all trying to emulate a Sound Blaster, doesn’t that mean that the genuine Sound Blaster must be the yardstick by which all cards are judged? It might be possible to buy sound cards which have more (or should that be different?) features. But then again, the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 we are looking at here doesn’t lack anything, at least anything that we Apart from the fact that it is so powerful, arguably the best feature of the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 is the front-of-computer “Live!Drive IR”, which allows connectivity and infrared control where you want it: out front! It’s shown enlarged below. 44  Silicon Chip would find important. And as Creative Technology (the manufacturers) state, over one hundred million satisfied users worldwide can hardly be wrong. Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 is, as its name suggests, a 5.1 channel surround sound system. What the name doesn’t say is that it is Dolby Digital 5.1 – there is no need to buy a Dolby Digital decoder to experience Dolby surround sound because it’s already in your system. So if you want to get into home theatre, this could be a very good way to do so. The system will handle both CD-ROM and DVD-ROM so you will have the audio side well and truly taken care of. You even get remote control – but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. What’s in the box? It’s a big box. But we’ve opened some big boxes before to find lots and Here’s what you get: the sound card itself is on the left side with the infrared remote below it. On the right is the Live!Drive IR unit together with the assortment of cables. The microphone is partially obscured (in front of the box) underneath which is the set of seven CDs and “getting started” instructions. lots of polystyrene packaging and not much content. Not so this one: there’s lots of content! First of all is the sound card itself – a PCI-slot card about 135 x 100mm. As sound cards go, it’s about average size. And like most cards, it has a backplane with the usual line in, line out, microphone and joystick sockets. You start to think something is a little different when you discover that it also has a “rear out” socket and what’s called an “analog/digital out” jack. If you’ve worked out that these are for surround sound (analog or digital), you’re one jump ahead of us! The card itself also has many more on-board connectors than your typical sound card. Of course there is the standard CD Audio connector – but there’s also an Aux connector (used for other devices within the computer which produce audio such as TV tuners, MPEG, etc); a TAD (telephone answering device) connector which provides a mono connection from a standard voice modem and transmits microphone signals to the modem; a CD SPDIF connector for the SPDIF (digital audio) output if available from a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive; and finally, an audio extension (digital I/O) connector which connects the card to an optional digital I/O card or to the supplied Live! Drive IR. Ah, the Live! Drive IR. We were coming to that. What absolutely infuriates most PC users is the fact that all connections to the machine are on the rear panel. And as most users like to keep their machines neat and wiring tucked away, to make even a minor change – connect a different input device to the sound card, for example – requires major deconstruction of your workstation or work area. Creative Technology have cleverly overcome this problem with the use of the Live! Drive IR. This is a standard-width (5-1/4in), half-height box which fits into any free drive bay on the front panel – in fact, it screws into place just like a CD-ROM or hard disk drive. On the Live! Drive IR fascia, you get a pair of RCA “aux in” sockets which can be used for just about any consumer equipment stereo audio output, a 1/4-inch headphone socket (unusual, that!) with its own volume control, a April 2001  45 1/4-inch line in or mic in stereo or mono socket (again with its own level control), a pair of RCA SPDIF in/out jacks (for digital audio from DAT or minidisc) along with a pair of optical SPDIF in/out connectors and a pair of MIDI in/out connectors. That gives you a large – and thorough – array of sound sources from which to choose. One thing we didn’t mention on this fascia is an infrared receiver window which is used in conjunction with the comprehensive infrared remote controller, also supplied with the Live! Drive IR unit. It’s hard to overstate the importance – in our eyes, anyway (or should that be ears?) – of this Live Drive IR. It’s been one of our biggest headaches over the years and now, at least as far as the audio is concerned, we’ll never have to move the computer again! By the way, the reason Creative use 1/4-inch sockets for the headphones is that they claim better quality headphones all use the standard 1/4-inch (6.5mm) size. If you have headphones with a 3.5mm socket, 3.5 to 6.5mm converters are easily obtainable. So far we’ve only looked at three pieces of hardware in the box. There’s also a range of inter-connecting cables (some of which you use during instal- The Live! Drive IR unit is not just a patch board. There’s a lot of electronics crammed onto its PC board as well, as this rear photo shows. This unit is the same size as a CD-ROM or 5-1/4inch hard disk drive and screws in the same way. lation) and some of which you may use later (such as the MIDI and optical cables). Finally, at least as far as the hardware is concerned, there is a microphone and desk stand which can be used in conjunction with several items of software including internet connectivity. The software Looking at the back plane (attached to the sound card) we can see the extra sockets which make all the difference: the top socket is the analog/digital out, for use with 5.1 channel amplifiers or digital speakers. Below that are the line in, microphone in, line out and rear speaker output jacks, with the joystick/MIDI “D” connector at the bottom. This photo is approximately life size. 46  Silicon Chip Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 includes no less than seven software CDs. The first of these is used for installation, which itself is a fairly simple procedure. It will run on any Pentium 166 or higher with 32MB RAM (64MB recommended) and operates under Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME or NT4. Some of the games require a faster machine with plenty of hard disk space (eg, 300MB!). The software loads the according-to-Creative “revolutionary” EMU10K1 digital audio processor, unleashing more power than you’ll know what to do with (at least for the first few weeks!). It also loads EAX, a collection of audio technologies developed by Creative to deliver 3D audio technology and 5.1 analog and digital sound. Just some of the packaged software includes: • Creative PlayCenter 2 – provides fast encoding and decoding of MP3 and WMA files, rips music from CD tracks, customizes and compiles playlists and so on. • Mixman Studio – create your own music, choosing sounds from the Soundisc library or create your own audio files to use in the mix. • Sound Forge XP – puts powerful audio processing tools to work on your desktop. Edit and record digital audio (.WAV) files. • PixMaker (and PixScreen) – lets you create 360 degree interactive PixAround scenes and web pages with hotspots to audio and video. • Creative MediaRing Talk – internet voice communication software which allows you to make PC to PC calls over the internet. • Steinberg’s Cubasis VST, WaveLab Lite and ReCycle Lite • Vorton Technologies’ Kool Kara-oke • Mindmaker’s Prody Parrot • Mindmaker’s Game Commander SE The five other CDs load a variety of games and applications. The games including Interplay’s MDK2, Thief II and Deus EX. While they looked pretty interesting, I didn’t even attempt to try out the games, due to lack of time. Besides, the boss might think I was having fun. . . Setup I mentioned a moment ago that setup was easy – which strictly speaking is true. It was more the pre-setup which concerns me – what is not said, rather than what is said. At the start of this review, I mentioned that the vast majority of (virtually all) computers sold these days would have sound cards fitted – as did mine. As I opened the Sound Blaster package I thought to myself “what about the existing sound card”. But I could find no mention of such an animal in the instructions. I knew that I should remove the existing card both electronically (through add/remove hardware under Control Panel) and physically, by removing it from its slot. But then I thought “hey, I’m reviewing this as a typical computer user. I should follow instructions to the letter”. So I did and, of course, things didn’t work the way they were supposed to. It was strange – some things sort-of-worked, others didn’t work at all but my existing sound card did keep working. No conflicts were shown – things just weren’t quite right. Anyway, I thought “enough” and uninstalled both the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 AND my existing card, removed the existing card and then re-installed the SBL!P5.1 – and surprise, surprise. It worked! That’s not the only beef I have with the installation instructions. No, I wasn’t caught – but only because I’ve done this before. The step-by-step instructions show you how to remove the front panel cover for the Live! Drive IR, how to install it and the sound card with diagrams showing how everything is wired together, then finally how to replace the computer cover, plug the power cord back in and switch on the system. The very next page shows how to connect your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive to the card. Hey guys, we’ve just put the cover back on and powered up the system. So you have to power down, unscrew the case, connect the CD-ROM – then put the cover back on. OK, it’s a small point but it’s sloppy. In use This might sound a little strange in this review but we didn’t have a We were unable to test the optical in/out because we had nothing which provided optical output or input. And we didn’t put any of the internet applications to work because we operate through a network and a firewall – and every time I fire up a new internet application, “something screwy” happens to our internet server. So I left that well alone. What we didn’t like The infrared remote control gives you virtually the same power as keyboard commands or mouse clicks. Unfortunately we found it a tad tricky to use. 5.1 channel amplifier and speakers lying idly by, so we were unable to put the system through its full paces. All we were able to do was work in 2-channel mode. And for this, we can say the system did everything we wanted it to do, albeit with some fairly steep learning curves. Given more time, we’re certain we’d be able to get more from it – a LOT more. You can select two channel, four channel or six (5.1) channel mode. We used the PlayCentre II software to rip audio from a few CDs and assemble playlists of our favourite tracks. We’re not going to tell you that we then sent this across our network to a CDROM burner to make a “favourites” CD, because that could be illegal (but gee it worked well!). We played with the effects engines, the mixers and many of the other applications – and loved ’em. It’s fairly easy to grasp the fundamentals but you will need some time (and possibly the brain of a 10-year-old!) to really get into the nitty gritty. From the things we played with, though, the immense potential of the system was very evident. Overall, our impression was very favourable. It packs a lot of punch and we’re sure would give first-rate results as a 5.1 system. But there were just a couple of niggly little things . . . Some of the applications literally take control of your PC and the limited instructions don’t really give you enough info to claim it back. So be prepared to get a little frustrated from time to time (I know I did). For example, once I had a large digital clock on screen (I don’t know where it came from!) which I simply couldn’t remove; even the main Creative Launcher doesn’t have the familiar “–x” box. Why not? In time, I’m sure this would become less of a problem as you became more and more familiar with the software and the way it works. Another thing was the inconsistency in the way the infrared controller worked. Sometimes it did what we expected, other times it didn’t. Again, I suspect this is more a lack of knowledge or understanding on my part than anything wrong with the system but when you have limited time, it’s a bit annoying. And one curious feature I found with the infrared which I’m sure is not a problem with me(!): when you use it, then change buttons, the first step it takes is from the previous button pressed. For example, when you increase volume, then push the decrease volume button, the first thing it does is increase volume one more step before starting to decrease. Curious, that. Where from? The Creative Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 should be available from any reasonable computer store. Trade enquiries should be directed to Creative Labs Pty Ltd, Locked Bag 5000, Banksmeadow, NSW 2019. Phone (02) 9666 6100; Fax (02) 9666 6900; website www.australia.creaSC tive.com April 2001  47